FST : Day 8 – Shamrock TX to Home (640 mi)

After yet another night of illness for me last night, we decided to point the Big Green Box for home. In truth, we were dancing on the fence about possibly heading to Suck Creek Mountain as late as going through Oklahoma City, but we decided to just push for home, and get me back into some familiar territory. It’s always nicer to recover in your own bed.

Today’s was a long leg of driving. It’d be long when feeling the best you could, but with a none-too-well-functioning body, it seemed interminable. We crossed from Texas to Oklahoma, and then to Missouri, and the end of the line for this trip could be seen. We arrived home, Beck went to pick up the dogs, and all seemed right with the world.

You can’t control illness, and I’ve been very fortunate to have been lucky enough to not fall significantly ill during our travels. This year, though, the odds caught up with me, and our vacation planning was cratered. We’ve decided to call this a “scouting trip” for travel in the future. We’ve also agreed that next time, we’ll do Monument Valley first, which forces us on a southern route to travel west. We’d then travel up to Moab, and return again through a southern route. Those steps will keep us out of the really high mountains in Colorado, and perhaps spare us some of the struggle we had along the way.

We definitely want to stay at The View at Monument Valley, and see the dark skies and rock formations. I don’t know that we have to time that visit around a meteor shower (although that’d be cool), so we may end up splitting up as two trips the voyage to Monument Valley and Moab. Regardless of the pairing or splitting of those trips, they will definitely be made in spring, autumn or winter — no more treks into the desert in summer for us!